Defendants Anton Kaindl (left) and Gustav Sorge (back middle) at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.
Overview
- Caption
- Defendants Anton Kaindl (left) and Gustav Sorge (back middle) at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp war crimes trial in Berlin.
- Date
-
1947 October 23 - 1947 November 01
- Locale
- Berlin, [Berlin] Germany
- Variant Locale
- Berlin-Buckow
Berlin-Mariendorf
Berlin-Ploetzensee
Berlin-Reinickendorf
Berlin-Tempelhof
Berlin-Wannsee
Berlin-Schlachtensee
Berlin-Duppel - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Central Archive of the Federal Security Service
- Event History
- On October 23, 1947 fifteen former Sachsenhausen concentration camp personnel and one former prisoner were brought to trial before a Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin. Among the defendants were Anton Kaindl, the former commandant, and Paul Sakowski, a kapo who had served as an executioner. The findings were announced on November 1, 1947 after only a brief trial. All sixteen were found guilty. Fifteen of the defendants were sentenced to life in prison with forced labor and one, to fifteen years in prison with forced labor.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007776.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Central Archive of the Federal Security ServiceSource Record ID: Collections: RG-06.025*26Second Record ID: KGB Archives: N-19092, Appendix - - file 2294
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Anton Kaindl was born in Munich in 1902 and joined the Waffen-SS in 1935, serving in the SS-Totenkopf Brigade (later the Totenkopf Division). He later joined the Nazi Party in 1937. In the fall of 1941 he served as an SS inspector in concentration camps, and from 1942 until 1945 he served as the commandant at Sachsenhausen. There, he oversaw the extermination of Soviet POWs and civilians of other German-occupied nations by hanging, shooting, gassing, and lethal injections. He subjected prisoners to forced labor and starvation, and organized the transfer of fifteen thousand prisoners to Auschwitz, Majdanek, and other camps to be exterminated. In the fall of 1943 he ordered the gas chambers to be built and authorized scientific experiments on prisoners. In February 1945 he was ordered to exterminate all prisoners, and as a result, by the end of the month, he had transferred eleven thousand prisoners to Bergen-Belsen. Finally, on 21 April, he ordered the killing of the rest of the prisoners by shooting or by death march. Following his trial by a Soviet Military Tribunal, he was sentenced to life in prison with forced labor.
Gustav Sorge was an ethnic German, who was born in 1911 in Reinicken, Poland, near Poznan. He joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the Waffen-SS in 1934, and from the fall of 1937 until the end of the war, he was active in the concentration camp system. From November of 1937 until June of 1942 he was a labor leader or "Rapportfuehrer" in Sachsenhausen, where his brutal treatment of prisoners earned him the name "Iron Gustav." He also oversaw the mass execution, imprisonment, and torture of many prisoners. From 1941 to 1942, he oversaw the execution of Soviet POWs and other prisoners, and in the spring of 1942 he was responsible for starving to death four hundred Russians in the isolation barracks. Following his trial by a Soviet Military Tribunal, he was sentenced to life in prison with forced labor.
- Record last modified:
- 2003-03-28 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1099313
